# bower-resolve
Find the relative path name of a bower module, for use with [browserify](https://github.com/substack/node-browserify) and [debowerify](https://github.com/eugeneware/debowerify).
[](http://travis-ci.org/eugeneware/bower-resolve)
## Installation
This module is installed via npm:
``` bash
$ npm install bower-resolve
```
## Example Usage
First, install some bower modules:
``` bash
$ bower install js-base64
```
Then to resolve the path of the main javascript file for a given bower module name:
``` js
var bowerResolve = require('bower-resolve');
//Option 1, using a port of bower's internal resolve algorithm
bowerResolve.fastRead('js-base64', function(modulePath){
//equals %cwd%/bower_components/js-base64/base64.js
})
//Option 2, using module list provided by bower's programmatic API
bowerResolve.init(function () {
bowerResolve('js-base64')
// returns %cwd%/bower_components/js-base64/base64.js'
});
```
## Usage with browserify/debowerify
This is useful for generating stand-alone libraries with
[browserify](https://github.com/substack/node-browserify) with the
[debowerify](https://github.com/eugeneware/debowerify) transform:
Let's say you have installed angularjs and jquery using bower:
``` bash
$ bower install jquery
$ bower install angular
```
You can build out a common library that will contain the jquery and angular
libraries into a file called common.js like so:
``` js
// build out angular and jquery to a library file called common.js
var fs = require('fs');
var browserify = require('browserify');
var bowerResolve = require('bower-resolve');
bowerResolve.init(function () {
var b = browserify();
b.require(bowerResolve('angular'), { expose: 'angular' });
b.require(bowerResolve('jquery'), { expose: 'jquery' });
b.bundle().pipe(fs.createWriteStream('./common.js'));
});
```
Similarly, if you have some other client-side code that you want to rely on
this common code, you can use bowerResolve to help you there, by declaring them
as external dependencies:
``` js
// app.js
var angular = require('angular');
var jQuery = require('jquery');
jQuery(function ($) {
console.log(angular);
});
```
Then build it out using browserify and debowerify as so:
``` js
// build out app.js and use the angular and jquery libs from common.js
var fs = require('fs');
var browserify = require('browserify');
var bowerResolve = require('bower-resolve');
bowerResolve.init(function () {
var b = browserify(['./app.js']);
b.external(bowerResolve('angular'));
b.external(bowerResolve('jquery'));
b.transform('debowerify');
b.bundle().pipe(fs.createWriteStream('./bundle.js'));
});
```
Then you'll have `common.js` that will have your shared code, and `bundle.js`
will have your client code.
Then you can use them together from your HTML app as follows:
``` html
Hello, bower
```
## Disable version checking
Bower module is doing check for new versions of installed components when
`bowerResolve.init` is called. You might want to prevent this behavior. Check
is made using Git client, which needs to be installed and available system wide
(that might be an issue on Windows). Otherwise whole process will just fail
without much useful error message. To disable version checking, use the
following:
```js
var bowerResolve = require('bower-resolve');
bowerResolve.offline = true;
bowerResolve.init(function() {....}};
```